Monday, December 29, 2014

You work for the only business of any substance in town. You make a nice income.

Your boss decides he needs to build a spite fence around a store all the way across town because it threatens his supply of some widget he needs to keep the company going, and he's afraid, terrified, if the price of that widget rises, he'll have to work harder to keep prices in check. Also, employees of another store have been seen shopping in his store, and those guys play rough. He tells you that you have to take a pay cut, because he and his friends will need to spend a lot of money building this defense and putting up a new security system around the shop, and his friends don't work cheap.

Do you agree quietly, or do you argue and protest that you need the money to put your kid through college?

Now, let's say that same boss comes to you and tells you that the janitor, George, is in deep trouble: his family can't afford food or medical care, his wife works two jobs, as does George, but they still can't make ends meet. He tells you that he needs to slice a tiny fraction of everyone's salary to help him stay at this job, because he works hard.

Do you agree quietly, or do you argue and protest that you need the money to put your kid through college?

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing